Posts Tagged ‘component parts’

Watches
Pocket watches
The first pocket watches, made during the second half of the 16th century, were powered by a three-wheel train, a fusee, and a verge escapement. By the beginning of the 17th century the familiar four-wheel train was introduced when it was realized that a higher wheel count effected a smoother transmission of power. Distinctively, watches of this early date have only one hand – this was typical until the late 17th century. Reflecting the puritanical climate of the period, British mid-17th-century 7th-century watches are usually either very plain or decorated only with simple engraving. Continental watchmakers created watches with highly coloured and beautifully painted enamel cases. Watches pre-dating BEFORE 1800
By the end of the 17th century Britain was producing the finest and most innovative watches. A particular feature of watches before c.1720 is the chanzpleve dial, made of metal inlaid with black wax; after c.1720 enamelled dials were more popular. A watch with a champleve dial, verge fusee movement, and pair cases (inner and outer cases) can be dated to the late 17th or early 18th century. Minute hands were introduced during this period and provided more accurate time readings. Watches at this time were mostly the preserve of members of the court and wealthy merchants.
During the second half of the 18th century, watches became more generally accessible, as the methods of production became more advanced. The pair-cased verge watch was the most common. Component parts were largely unchanged from the late 17th century; although usually made of silver, they were also made of gold.
AFTER 1800
The general construction of the watch did not change until the very beginning of the 19th century when watchmakers in continental Europe started to produce slimmer watches, often still using the traditional verge escapement. High-quality, decorative, enamelled cases are often a feature of watches of c.1800; some were produced with novelty cases in the shape of violins, beetles, pistols, and snuff-boxes.
During the mid-19th century the keyless watch with winding as an inbuilt mechanism was introduced, and by the 1870s most pocket watches were keyless. Watches became slimmer in design and several different
types were introduced, the most common being open-faced (glazed front, hinged back cover), half-hunting-cased (hinged front cover with small glazed aperture, chapter ring, and hinged back cover), and hunting-cased (hinged covers at both the front and back). During the 19th century the two dominant types of escapement were the cylinder and the lever. The cylinder, although widely used, was eventually superseded by the more efficient lever.
While complicated and precision watches
have been produced throughout watchmaking history, these were often one-off pieces or regarded as scientific instruments rather than practical, everyday watches. Toward the end of the 19th century, however, a great variety of special features was added to more standard pocket watches, including repeating mechanisms that sounded the hours, quarter hours, and sometimes also the minutes, calendarwork, chronograph (stopwatch) mechanisms, and moonphases. Such watches typify the high-quality Swiss work produced at the end of the 19th century and are highly collectable.
Before 1800
• CASES in the 16th and early 17th centuries, most cases were single and either plain, engraved, or enamelled –when decoration is present it is usually of a religious nature; later cases were typically pairs and of silver, gold, or gilt metal
• DIALS engraved metal was popular until the mid-17th
i
champleve dials were typical in the late
century
17th and early 18th centuries
• HANDS most clocks featured a single hand until the late 17th century; two hands were typical thereafter, usually in the “beetle and poker” design
• MOVEMENT most watches from the 18th century were fitted with a verge escapement
• COLLECTING even 19th-century copies of early watches are reasonably valuable
After 1800
• DESIGNS watches were slimmer after c. f800 especially in continental Europe; by the 1870s the majority of pocket watches were keyless
• CASES most are decorative and of painted enamel; novelty shapes popular in the early 19th century; from the mid-19th century cases were of three principal types: open-faced, half-hunting-cased, or hunting-cased
• DIALS enamelled dials are typical; many watches also feature several subsidiary dials
• MOVEMENTS various escapements were used, including verge, cylinder, and lever mechanisms
• COLLECTING watches with chronographs, repeating mechanisms, moonphases, and calendars are especially collectable
Important makers
British: Thomas Tompion ( 1638-1713); Daniel Quare (1648-1724); George Graham (1674-1751); L.J. Dent: 1790-1853; Charles Frodsham (1810-71); French: Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747-1823); Vacheron & Constantin (est. 1755)
Wristwatches
The watch was first worn on the wrist in the early years Of the 20th century. Early wristwatches were in the form of small pocket watches that had been converted to wristwatches either by the addition of wire strap lugs Soldered on to the case or by the use of a leather pocket, designed to hold the watch and fix onto the wrist with a strap. Such watches are easily identifiable as they are usualдн profusely chased and engraved on the reverse and the dial is not positioned in the usual wristwatch manner. These early wristwatch conversions are historically interesting but generally of low value. The first true wristwatch was produced by the Parisian
firm of Cartier c.1904 for the aviator
Alberto Santos Dumont; this design
became known as the “Santos” and is
still in production today. The Swiss firm
of Rolex, at the forefront of watch
production, began to manufacture
wristwatches as early as 1911. With the
Outbreak of World War I, wristwatches
were issued to servicemen, and many
interesting variations of these watches can
be found. The “Trench” watch is one of
these and is readily identifiable by its
pierced grille, intended to protect the glass
and dial. Until the 1920s watches were
generally of plain circular form with either
silvered or enamel dials, Swiss movements,
and either chrome, silver, or gold cases.
AFTER 1920
During the 1920s the range of wristwatch styles broadened to include rectangular, square, oval, and octagonal shapes. Most designs featured simple clean lines and bold numerals. During the 1930s case and dial designs became more abstract, numerals were more exaggerated and elongated, and two-colour cases and
bold Odeonesque features were introduced. Watches from the 1920s and 1930s are among the most sought after by collectors: a classic style coupled with a maker renowned for high standards such as Patek Philippe, Rolex, Cartier, Jaeger le Coultre, Audemars Piguet, and Vacheron & Constantin would be especially desirable.
In the I 940s watch styles resembled jewellery, designs of the period with styles such as the “cocktail” watch being typical. After the outbreak of World War II standard wristwatches were issued to members of the armed forces. These watches can be identified by their robust steel construction and their characteristic black dials and luminous numerals. The British Government property mark in the form of an arrow on the back of the case can also help to confirm the identification of British watches. Since military wristwatches were made by most eminent makers, including Longines, I.W.C., and Omega, collectors are taking an increased interest in these watches.
From the late 1940s into the early 1950s wristwatch design captured the futuristic look that was popular at the time: hands and baton numerals were severely pointed and streamlined and lugs were typically in exaggerated teardrop shapes. The inclusion of such features as calendars, moonphases, and chronographs was also highly characteristic of the period.
The following decade, the 1960s, produced many abstract and interesting watch designs, which are instantly recognizable as products of their age. While these characteristically bright-coloured watches in new synthetic materials are currently of little interest to the serious watch collector, they are avidly sought after by followers of modern design. Most wristwatch collectors today seek the classic designs from the 1930x, 1940s, and 1950x. When assessing value, the style, maker, model, and complexity of a watch are vital considerations, as are condition and any replacement parts.
Wristwatches of recent manufacture are also sought after when made by one of the exclusive designers.
KEY FACTS
Before 1920
• DESIGNS these were usually of plain circular form with wire strap lugs and enamel dials; the “Trench” watch, distributed to soldiers in World War 1, featured a protective grille over the glass dial-cover
• DIALS these were often unsigned – check the movement for the maker’s signature
After 1920
• DESIGNS unusual case shapes were typical; most military wristwatches from World War II are slightly larger than average, with black dials
• COLLECTING calendars, chronographs, moonphases,
and repeating features can add value; automatic
wristwatches are more sought after than manual-wind watches; British military watches are usually inscribed on the reverse with a Government issue arrow
Collectable makers
Patek Philippe, Rolex, Cartier, Vacheron &_ Constantin, Audemars Piguet, Jaeger Ie Coultre

Flatware, or cutlery, remains among the most popular antique silver today. Spoons, owned and valued by all classes of society, are among the earliest utilitarian silver to survive in any quantity – being small, they had a relatively low value as bullion and were not as readily converted into coin as larger items. Forks were only used for sweetmeats or desserts until the 16th century in continental Europe and the late 17th century in Britain. It was not until the 18th century that matching sets of silver spoons, forks, and knives were produced, but thereafter they were made on a large scale and in an extensive range of patterns. Complete and original sets of flatware are rare and expensive, since individual pieces were often very heavily used and then replaced.
APOSTLE SPOONS
English apostle spoons were made in London and the provinces from the mid-15th to the mid-17th century. They have a fig-shaped bowl and faceted hexagonal stem, and are so called because the cast finials depict the
12 Apostles; originally they were made in sets of 12 or
13 (the thirteenth spoon usually representing Christ), but very few full sets survive today. Spoons were often given as christening presents, the child receiving the spoon representing the saint after whom he was named. Each Apostle can usually be identified by the symbolic object in his right hand – for example keys or a fish for St Peter or a saltine cross for St Andrew. The bowl and stem were created from a single piece of silver, one part being drawn out for the stem and the other hammered into a shaped die for the bowl; the finial was attached with a “V”-joint on pieces made in London; provincial makers used a lap joint. The position of marks on apostle spoons is also distinctive – the town mark is in the bowl; other marks appear on the back of the stem.
Apostle spoons tend to fetch high prices on the market today, as they have been of interest to collectors and antiquarians from as far back as the 18th century. Many fakes were created by cutting off the stem from a similar spoon and adding a reproduction apostle finial. Indistinct features of the apostles are not always a sign that the finial is a fake, because in the 15th and 16th centuries a single mould may have been employed to cast hundreds of finials, so some genuine examples lack sharpness.
SETS OF SILVER FLATWARE
French styles of silver were popular in England after the Restoration in 1660, when King Charles II returned from exile in France. Among the new forms introduced was a type of spoon with an egg-shaped bowl and broad, flat stem ending in a simple trefoil, known as a “trefid” spoon. The bowl was joined to the stem by a tapering rib, or “rat-tail”, and sometimes the back of the spoon was decorated with scrolls in low relief or engraved with a crest or initials. By c.1690 the trefid pattern had flattened out into the “dognose” – the end of the stem had a central curve with a smaller one on either side. Dining forks, used in France and Italy since the 16th century, were also introduced to England at the Restoration; these followed the styles of trefid and dognose spoons and usually had two or three prongs, or tines. Early forks are rare and much sought after. Some fakes have been converted from spoons, but the proportions are slightly wrong and the tines too thin. Usually, early forks were thick and heavy.
By the early-18th-century forks, knives (with rounded cannon- or pistol-shaped handles), and spoons were made as a set – a trend probably influenced by the fashion for dinner services with matching ornament. The first pattern for matching flatware was the “Hanoverian”; it features a flat, rounded end turned upward and a ridge along the front of the handle. Coats of arms or crests were engraved on the back of the stem, since flatware was laid face down on the table in the French manner.
The Hanoverian pattern evolved by the 1760s into the “Old English” pattern, with a plain, rounded end but turned down instead of up (on spoons), according to the new fashion of placing cutlery face up on the table. In the same period, forks were made with four instead of three tines. With increasingly elaborate dining habits, special silver-gilt services for dessert became popular.
Flatware was made in a huge variety of patterns from the late 18th century, especially with the development of mechanized manufacture in Sheffield, which became the most important centre of cutlery production in England. The more popular styles in the late 18th and 19th
centuries included the “fiddle” (with the end of the handle in a fiddle shape), and the more ornate “King’s” and “Queen’s” pattern. Flatware of this date was often supplied with a fitted case.
Today, complete and original sets of flatware, even from the 20th century, are very rare, as pieces were often replaced due to heavy use. When buying flatware, it is important to check for forks that have been trimmed off (this is difficult to detect) and for spoons whose bowls have been reshaped to disguise wear.
CADDY AND MOTE SPOONS
Before the 1770s tea was measured out using the domed caps on tea-caddies; when these were replaced by larger lids a small spoon was kept in the caddy. From the late 18th century thousands of caddy spoons were produced in a diverse range of designs, especially by manufacturers who specialized in “toys” – wine labels, boxes, buckles, and other small items. Like wine labels, caddy spoons are popular with first-time silver collectors.
Among the earliest and most common designs was a spoon with a shell-shaped bowl; other popular novelty forms included a vine leaf with a vine tendril as a handle, a shovel or scoop, and, most coveted by collectors, an eagle’s wing and a jockey cap. Most spoons were made by die-stamping, but heavier and more expensive pieces might be cast. Filigree and handles of bone, ivory, or in other- of-pea rl were also used. In recent years many reproductions of earlier designs have been produced.
Mote silver spoons, or skimmers, were used to skim tea leaves off tea. Made from the early 18th century, they usually have a pierced bowl, with a pattern of circular holes or crosses and scrolls, and a slender, tapering, pointed stem, for unblocking the spout of the teapot. Mote spoons were often made en suite with teaspoons. Some fake mote spoons have been converted from teaspoons, but teaspoons have larger bowls and no pointed end and are shorter.
LADLES AND FISH SLICES
Ladles for serving soup, sauce, punch, and sugar were produced from the 18th century, sometimes en suite with tureens and punch-bowls. The styles tend to follow flatware, but some soup ladles were made with deep-fluted shell bowls. Punch ladles had circular or oval bowls with a lip and a handle of wood, whalebone, or silver.
Fish slices, produced from the 18th century, have a broad pierced blade and turned wooden or silver handle. Early pieces are pierced with simple patterns, but some Victorian ones depict fishing themes. Fish slices are easily damaged, especially on the piercing and where the blade joins the handle.

Apostle spoons
• CONSTRUCTION the finial is joined to the stem on London-made spoons with a “V”-joint and on provincial pieces with a lap joint
• COLLECTING very few complete sets survive today; most are provincial pieces
Marks
The town mark is typically found in the bowl; other marks may appear on the back of the stem
Flatware
• COLLECTING it is important to check patterns closely because of small variations in design; complete and original sets are now rare; those with an equal amount of wear on each piece are most collectable; early forks are valuable; knives made before 1800 are abundant but few have survived in good condition
Marks
These were struck near the stem in the early 18th century but near the handle by the 1770s
Caddyspoons
• CONDITION check for badly repaired pieces, with spoons that have snapped where the bowl joins the stem; filigree spoons tend to be very fragile
• COLLECTING designs are extremely varied
STYLES OF FLATWARE
Sets of flatware with matching decoration were first produced in the early 18th century. These are some common styles.

Featured at Antcollectors Silver:
silve filigree fish slice and fork with ivory handles
silver antique candelabra markings
silver candleabras made in england
silver candlestick pillar
silver candlesticks worth
silver entree dishes
silver ornate tea spoons italy
silver pillar candlestick
silver plated corinthian hexagonal base three light candelabra
silver tray on stand
silver tray with food
silver tray with top
silversmiths london england 19th century

Decorative tableware
In the 18th and 19th centuries the utilitarian plate on dining-tales was complemented by richly
decorative pieces such as bread-, fruit- and cake-baskets, epergnes, and centrepieces. Made as much to display wealth as to be practical, these are characterized by high-quality casting, chasing, and, especially on baskets and epergnes, piercing. Such objects are among the most popular with collectors today because they are particularly attractive as
display pieces on a table.
SILVER EPERGNES
First used at the French court in the 1690s and in England c.1715, the epergne was an elaborate centrepiece for the dinner-table or sideboard. The name “epergne” is probably derived from the French word epargner, meaning “to save”: space could be saved on the table by
bringing together several dishes on one stand. By the 1740s the epergne was associated with the dessert course and generally took the form of a central
pierced basket surrounded by four to six pierced dishes or baskets for holding fruit or sweetmeats. It was most popular during the mid-18th century, when the light and delicate pierced forms, often ornamented with cast shells and flowers, were particularly suited to the Rococo style. Some epergnes, particularly those by the leading English maker Thomas Pitts (c.1723-93), demonstrate the contemporary vogue for chinoiserie, with their pagoda-like canopies with suspended bells.
In the 1760s and 1770s epergnes became wider and headier with the addition of more baskets, and in the 1-80s the influence of the Neo-classical style was
evident, with simpler oval or circular baskets, sometimes with blue glass liners, and decorated with Vitruvian scroll borders and swags. The leading specialist maker of epergnes in late 18th-century England was Thomas Pitts’s son William Pitts (active 1781-1806). Like other silversmiths, he offered clients a choice between more expensive epergnes, which had cast branches and decoration, and less expensive examples with mechanically produced ornament.
Heavier and more solid than 18th-century examples, Regency epergnes are usually mounted on a heavy Square or round foot, with branches ending in large floral sockets supporting cut-glass bowls rather than pierced silver baskets. Very few epergnes were made after this period, as they were generally replaced by the ornamental centrepiece.
SILVER CENTREPIECES
Large centrepieces as a decorative focal point for the dining-table or sideboard have always been among the most expensive items of plate and were often displayed as a sign of the wealth and status of the owner. One of the most famous and inventive pieces is the English silver-gilt Poseidon or Neptune centrepiece of 1741, made for Frederick, Prince of Wales. It features an elaborate stand of sculptural cast dolphins and mermen and is decorated with shells and marine creatures. Although this piece bears the maker’s mark of Paul Crespin (1694-1770), it may in fact have been designed and made by Nicholas Sprimont (1716-71 ); both were
leading English Huguenot makers of Rococo silver. The centrepiece was made with many matching salt-cellars and sauceboats, as befitting a grand table service for a royal patron.
Regency and Victorian centrepieces from the
19th century appear more frequently frequently at auctions today (although North American pieces are rare). Made with or without branches for candles, they usually have a central bowl, either solid silver or pierced with a glass liner, for fruit or sweetmeats. Centrepieces with all their original glass liners are rare today. Female caryatid figures supporting a bowl on a stand with heavy scroll or paw feet are characteristic of the Regency period, whereas later 19th-century centrepieces were made in
a huge variety of designs – naturalistic, sculptural figures were particularly popular. Many Victorian centrepieces were supplied with a flat, mirrored stand known as a “plateau” to enhance the decorative effect, but very often these became separated from the centrepiece and were sold on their own.
In the 19th century there was also a great demand for presentation plate, and the most important firms, such as Hunt & Roskell (est. 1844), Garrards (est. 1802), and Elkington & Co. (est. c.1830) in England, and Odiot in France, employed sculptors to design magnificent silver or electroplate centrepieces for historic or sporting occasions. Such pieces were shown at the 1851 Great Exhibition in London. Centrepieces were also made in Germany and Austria, notably by the firm of Klinkosch, but these are not always of such good quality as English and French pieces because the metal is often thinner. By the second half of the 19th century centrepieces had been scaled down in size and elaborateness, with a single basket on a stand becoming the usual form. This developed into the dessert stand, which had replaced the centrepiece by the end of the century.
Regency and early Victorian baskets were produced in a wide variety of styles, but in many cases they can be distinguished from 18th-century examples by an unpierced body that is embossed and chased with heavy scrolls, flowers, and foliage, or radiating lobes. Silversmiths in the 19th century also reproduced the shell-shaped designs and elaborate patterns that were typical of the Rococo period.
Victorian baskets are generally less expensive and more readily available to collectors today than examples from the 18th and 19th centuries. The handles on these baskets are sometimes bent or damaged (or have been removed altogether), as the weight of the unpierced body puts strain on them. Any basket that does not have a handle should be carefully examined to see if the handle has been removed. As on earlier examples, the feet may also have been pushed up into the body of the basket if it has at some stage been overloaded.
SILVER BASKETS
Silver baskets designed for holding bread, fruit, cake, or sweetmeats are known from the early 17th century, but most of those surviving today date from (.1730 onward. They are oval or circular with pierced sides,
a flat base on a raised foot or four cast feet, and a fixed or swinging bail handle. In many cases, the flat base was engraved with a coat of arms. In the late 1730s and 1740s the leading English silversmiths Paul de Lamerie (1688-1751), Paul Crespin (1694-1770), and
James Schruder (active 1737–(.1752) produced intricate Rococo baskets with delicate pierced designs of scrolls, circles, crescents, and quatrefoils, elaborate engraving and chasing, and asymmetrical handles with cast and applied masks, animals, figures, and birds.
Another feature typical of the Rococo fashion for novelty was the imitation of inexpensive materials in silver; on baskets dating from the first half of the 18th century the sides are often pierced and chased to give the impression of wickerwork strips. Some extremely rare and expensive baskets by the best makers were made in the form of sculptural scallop shells with scroll handles.
By the late 18th century silversmiths used hand-piercing only for the finest baskets, as the majority of pierced parts were mass-produced quickly and
accurately using the newly developed fly-punch. The silver sheet was also much thinner than on earlier pieces, so baskets of this date should always be carefully checked to make sure that the piercing is intact. Simple wirework baskets embellished with chased and applied motifs such as flowers, vine leaves, and sheaves of wheat (for bread-baskets) were also popular in the late 18th century.
Epergnes
• COLLECTING individual baskets may be sold separately; check branches and feet for cracks or repairs
Marks
All detachable parts should be marked; crests or coats of arms on each piece should match
Centrepieces
• COLLECTING mirrored plateaux are now often sold on their own; inscriptions do not add value unless of particular historical interest
Marks
All detachable parts should be marked
Baskets
• DESIGNS solid forms with chased scrolls, flowers, and shells were typical in the early 19th century
• CONDITION piercing is particularly vulnerable to damage and should be checked carefully; ensure that the handle is not bent or damaged due to wear or overloading the basket; feet are prone to pushing LIP through the body on light, sheet-metal baskets
• COLLECTING early 18th-century baskets in heavy-gauge metal are more valuable than later, lighter ones
Marks
Both the handle and body should feature the same mark; marks arc sometimes pierced out.

Trays, knife-boxes, cutlery-urns, wine coolers, cellarets, and buckets
TRAYS
Known as “voyders” in the Middle Ages, and conceived not only for clearing away but also for the presentation of delicacies and sweetmeats, the earliest utilitarian trays were probably made of pewter and wood. During the late 17th century lacquered trays imported by the East India companies and European japanned versions revolutionized tray designs. The fashion for tea in the early 18th century was directly reflected upon all of the component parts of the tea ceremony.
Modest trays in oak and elm also survive from the early 18th century, and from the 1750s mahogany trays first appeared in pattern-hooks. Thomas Chippendale (1718-79), in the first edition of The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director (1754), included four designs for trays in the Chinese style with carved fret borders. However, this type is very rare, and Chippendale also supplied designs for plain rectangular trays. From the 1780s trays became increasingly decorative; they were made in mahogany, and other exotic timbers, were sometimes richly inlaid with shells, fan-parquetry, and foliate arabesques of stained fruitwood, or were painted. Late 18th- and early 19th-century trays were dominated by the fashion for japanning, particularly in papier-mache. A process long practised in Persia (now Iran), it was patented in 1772 by the firm of Henry Clay, in Birmingham, and later by Jennens &, Bettridge (active 1816-64) in London. Although papier-mache trays were often of scalloped form, rectangular trays with similar decoration were also fashionable, particularly those of tole peinte or polychrome-painted metal.
KNIFE-BOXES AND CUTLERY-URNS
Supplied in pairs as ornamental containers for silver and enamel-handled cutlery and designed to stand prominently on the serving table, knife-boxes came into fashion during the reign of George II ( 1727-60). Although the basic form, with a serpentine front, remained remarkably unchanged until the 1780s, George 11 knife-boxes were often ten covered with silk-velvet or shagreen, rather than veneered. From the 1760s knife-boxes in mahogany were made and are characterized by their bow-fronted form, hinged slope with drop-handles, and shaped bracket or claw-and-ball feet; they are unembellished apart from the cockbeaded or chequerbanded edges. The interiors, with slopes pierced with holes to display the cutlery in tiers, were also often silk lined but otherwise restrained. During the 1770s their decoration became increasingly lavish, with crossbanding and featherbanding, ebony-inlaid star parquetry to the slopes, and even stylized green-stained shell inlay – a motif particularly identified with North Country workshops – while the feet were discarded altogether in favour of Classical plinths. With the age of satinwood ( 1780-1800), elaborate Neo-classical embellishments became commonplace, and these were often complemented by richly engraved Sheffield plate Mounts. During the 1780s the vase-form knife-box, published by George Hepplewhite (d.1786) in The Cabinet-Maker and upholsterer’s Guide ( 1788-94), was designed to stand either set at each end of the sideboard or on pedestals. Made of satinwood or other light woods, the most refined examples were painted or inlaid with Neo-classical marquetry, arabesques, and simulated flutes, while the spring-loaded lids opened to reveal a chequerbanded interior with concentric tiers for the display of cutlery. During the early 19th century, knife-boxes and cutlery-urns became increasingly redundant both by sideboards with fitted drawers for storage, and by cutlery-urns being affixed to pedestals.
WINE COOLERS AND CELLARETS
As wine was an expensive luxury, receptacles for cooling and storing wine – whether of open-topped cistern (wine cooler) or lidded cellaret form, fitted with a lock, with divisions for bottles –were often lavishly decorated. Although metal and marble cellarets were first recorded in Britain in the late 17th century, it was not until the mid-18th century that lead-lined mahogany examples carved in the Rococo taste were made. Perhaps the most celebrated wine cooler is the Georgian form with a hexagonal or oval body, made of vertical sections of mahogany held together with two or three brass bands.
Neo-classical wine coolers and cellarets were usually conceived en suite with sideboards and pedestals, and were still predominantly of mahogany, although exotic timbers such as satinwood, padouk, and rosewood were also used. Although wine coolers with serpentine-channelled flutes to the body, which were directly inspired by Roman sarcophagi, and those with elaborate marquetry in a lighter style, continued to be made in the 1780s and 1790s, the most common examples were plainer mahogany- hooped with brass, with the lead-lined inside divided with partitions for the bottles. It is from this date that the majority of canted rectangular, circular, dome-lidded, and octagonal examples survive. Increasingly restrained in form and decoration, cellarets were rendered somewhat redundant by the inclusion of cellaret-drawers within designs for dining-room pedestals and sideboards.
During the early 19th century the lidded cellarets of Roman sarcophagus form, which were often of much larger size than its 18th-century predecessors, dominated Regency
pattern-books, and generally do not have stands. While firms such as Dillow (est. c.1730) of
Lancaster, Continued to supply cellarets in superbly figured
mahogany, from 1810 cabinet-makers under the
influence of George Bullock (c.1777-1818) increasingly promoted the use of indigenous English woods such as pollard oak and elm, frequently enriched with foliate marquetry arabesques in the “Buhl” style. However, from the 1830s this decoration became increasingly lavish, often combined with carving, and later Victorian cellarets arc often betrayed by their squatter, heavier proportions.
PLATE-BUCKETS AND PEAT-BUCKETS Plate-buckets are distinguished by their one-dished side that enabled servants to remove plates easily and straight-sided, or even polygonal form. Inspired by the need to ferry- plates the long distances from the kitchen to the dining-room, and usually made in pairs, plate-buckets were initially intended to be placed near the fire to keep the plates warm. The plate-bucket lent itself easily to embellishment and carving with pierced Gothick arcades, Chinese blind fretwork, and even marquetry inlay in the Neo-classical style; plain types were also made. The role of the plate-bucket was superseded in the late 18th century by the warmers enclosed within dining-room pedestals, and thus plate-buckets became increasingly plain, purely for use by servants for carrying china to the dining-room. The “peat-bucket” is an Irish term for a container traditionally thought to have been used for carrying peat to the fireplace. However, this is now thought to be unlikely as the bucket and peat together would have been very heavy indeed. It is now thought that they were used for carrying any number of items, including oysters. Although buckets are usually considered an English form, 18th- and 19th-century ones from The Netherlands arc among the most common found today, and can be distinguished from their English counterparts by their slightly smaller proportions, ribbed tapering bodies and, most characteristically, by the alternating use of light fruitwood and mahogany to give a streaked effect to the bodies.
• TRAYS 18th-century mahogany trays are rare; those that exist are often made from the leaves of old dining-tables; papier-mache trays may suffer from craquelure and
flaking; the best papier-mache examples have mother-of-pearl inlay.
• KNIFE-BOXES many have had the insides removed so that they could be converted to other uses – often as writing-cases in the 19th century; a premium is attached to those that retain their original fitments; examples with shell inlay sire usually from the North Country and Scotland; pairs of cutlery urns are very desirable.
• WINE COOLERS rare examples are those from the 18th century of carved mahogany or walnut.
• PLATE- AND PEAT-BUCKETS these are faked in huge numbers, often from old timber; look out for indications of consistent old damage, shrinkage, and seams to the brass bands, and beware of suspicious stains.